Friday, January 31, 2014

Wondering about Accidental Inventions.

I bet you thought that an awful lot of hard work, many hours of thought, and lots of trials and errors are involved in great inventions.  I have to agree that most are like that, but there are a few exceptions.  Some were accidents.  Do you want to hear about them?  No?!?!?  Well then, quit reading now and go to another blog, because I am going to tell about them.

Let me start with X-ray.  No, no one invented X-rays.  They have been around since the beginning of the universe.  But someone did invent a way for man to produce them and it was by accident.  Wilhelm Roentgen was performing a routine experiment involving cathode rays, when he noticed a piece of fluorescent cardboard across the room was lighting up.  He went on from there to X-ray his wife's hand, the first X-ray image of a live human part:


This next item was invented by a dog.  What??  Yep, you heard right, by a dog and exploited by its owner.  The dog and its owner, George de Mestral, were out hunting and the dog got a bunch of burrs stuck in its fur.  Old George got curious and took some burrs home and put them under the microscope and discovered tiny hooks that allowed the burrs to stick to the dog's fur.  And thus bloomed the invention of Velcro.

Then there was the fellow who was trying to make a heart-recording device.  He mistakenly used 1 megaohm instead of a 10,000-ohm resister in his prototype.  This produced a signal identical to a human heart beat, so the pacemaker was another accidental invention.

There were many more, but will not take the time to write about them all.  They include the microwave, Teflon, Play-Doh, Super Glue, the Slinky, Sweet'n Low, and many others.  I suppose that an accident would be the only way I could ever invent something and I would hope I had enough wisdom to recognize it when it happens.  Now, you all go invent something and have a great day, you hear?

13 comments:

  1. wow with the invention of Velcro... what fun

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    1. Velcro works well until it gets full of dog hair. . .

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  3. Good post. If I ever invent anything it would soon be lost, I'm a messy worker!

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    1. I don't think anybody actually invents things, they just figure out other ways of using what is already here.

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  4. I've thought of new ways of doing things, but nothing of commercial value.

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    1. You may be surprised. Just think, if you had marketed them you could flying around in your personal jet.

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  5. Bill is always figuring out how to do things more efficiently.... not sure they are inventions but time (and back) savers. Some of them would make you think of those old Rube Goldberg cartoons. Remember them?

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    1. Oh yes, I remember Rube Goldberg and his cartoons. Have made a few of those contraptions myself (grin).

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  6. Last Sunday thet did a piece on CBS about Rube Goldburg.... very interesting!

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    1. I missed that. Didn't know it was on. I would have liked to have seen it.

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  7. Well, some brilliant inventions were created by accident. Always pictured someone in a room with pen and paper thinking, thinking and thinking for hours.

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    1. Thinking, I am sure, was the source of a lot of inventions, too.

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